Transition Dynamics of Geological Disaster Resilience and Network Structure Analysis in Mountain Cities: Evidence from County-Level Areas in Western Sichuan Province, China

Against the background of intensifying global climate change and the continued expansion of human activities into mountainous areas, geological hazards such as landslides, rockfalls, and debris flows have become increasingly frequent, posing serious challenges to urban safety and sustainable development in mountainous regions. From a resilience perspective, this study selects 19 cities in western Sichuan Province as the study area and develops a three-dimensional geological-hazard resilience framework comprising adaptation, resistance, and recovery capacities. The entropy weight–TOPSIS method is employed to assess geological-hazard resilience from 2018 to 2022, while kernel density estimation, Markov chains, an improved gravity model, and social network analysis are integrated to investigate spatiotemporal evolution and network structure. The results show that: (1) geological-hazard resilience generally increased across the study area, while regional disparities continued to widen; (2) the three resilience dimensions gradually shifted from imbalance toward greater coordination, with adaptation and recovery capacities improving markedly, whereas resistance capacity remained relatively weak and exhibited greater fluctuations; (3) temporally, the kernel density distribution evolved from a sharper to a flatter pattern, indicating some improvement among low-resilience areas while differentiation persisted; spatially, resilience exhibited an “east-high, west-low” pattern, together with evident path dependence and neighborhood effects. Low-resilience areas showed relatively high state persistence, and upward transition probabilities varied under different neighborhood conditions; and (4) the spatial network structure became progressively denser, with increasing intercity connections and network density, although diffusion toward western areas remained limited and regional development disparities persisted. These findings provide a basis for disaster risk reduction and coordinated regional resilience governance in mountainous cities. This study provides theoretical support and decision-making references for disaster prevention and mitigation as well as regional coordinated governance in mountainous cities.